“That’s the only way this all makes sense. He comes here spinning his lawyer’s web, twists Mom round his little finger till he gets her finances right where he wants them, then you show up. And I bet you asked the exact same questions I’m asking. But you’re not so vulnerable as Mom, not quite so gullible. You wouldn’t fall for all that legal jammer. So, he knew he had to get around you some other way. All he had to do was speak to someone at your firm and they’d tell him what he needed to know.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

“Well, let’s just say you’re not the shining beacon of virtue Mom thinks you are.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Explain.”

“Marty Brigman. Apparently, his wife sticks little pins in a doll-sized version of you, on account of you and Marty getting all Fifty Shades of Nasty.”

Rose shot to her feet, spilling the chair off its feet behind her. “You sick little shit. Who told you that crap? Do you believe everything you hear?”

By this time, her mom was propped against the countertop, arms folded, staring at the floor and shaking her head. This wasn’t how the reunion was supposed to have gone at all. But how much of that was Rose’s fault? Not a whole, she reckoned. The little snot had burst in and self-righteously laid down the law like the goddamn Spanish Inquisition, without acknowledging his own family treachery.

“Never mind who told me. So, is it true, about you and…this slippery sonofabitch?”

Still no reaction from Bellamy. Either he was in a Zen-like state of maple syrup-fueled nirvana or he was happy to let a woman fight his battles for him. Rose hurled a coaster at her brother and was about to let fly with both fists when the mystery man, the center of all this family angst, set his knife and fork down on the plate with a clink. It was a sound that wouldn’t have disturbed a fly from his plate, but for some reason, Rose and Andy both spun to face him and stayed silent while he calmly spoke, “I think you owe your mother an apology, Andrew.”

Rose’s little brother started forward at him but stopped suddenly and began to settle back against the sink just inches from the guest. He swallowed. Couldn’t take his eyes off Bellamy. “I-I don’t know what you mean.”

“You hired a private investigator to follow me, to find out how I was swindling your mother.”